I Want a Throne
by Fire Gazer the Alchemist
Summary: Luna thinks it's high time she got her own throne, though Celestia is a little reluctant for some reason.


Princess Celestia tapped her hoof across the base of her throne with a constant, steady rhythm. Her eyes darted over the papers in front of her, scanning the proposed plans for any sign of faults within. Over a thousand years of experience with reviewing documents of this nature had given her a keen eye for detecting problems with government policies. For perhaps the first time in centuries, however, she couldn't seem to find a single problem in the one she was looking at. It was by far the most well-organized and brilliantly thought out proposal she had ever seen, though that shouldn't surprise her. The pony who drafted it was Twilight, after all. She set down the papers and looked at her.

"Well, I've reviewed this as thoroughly as possible," Celestia said as a smile creased her lips. "And Twilight, I do believe that this will wor-"

"TIA!" The doors to her throne room suddenly burst open, sending a rushing wind flying towards them. The papers held in Celestia's lax magical grip were blown across the room. Twilight yelped in shock, falling on her backside. Celestia casually glanced up to see an upset Princess Luna standing in the doorway. "WE NEED TO HAVE A WORD WITH THOU!" Luna was using the Royal Canterlot Voice, and that – coupled with her lowered eyebrows and scowl – suggested she might be angry. Two immediate possibilities came to the forefront of Celestia's mind; either somepony had just declared war on them, or Luna was just a little peeved that Prince Blueblood had taken her horn file again.

"What is it, Luna?" Celestia's partially annoyed voice asked.

"WE HAVE A DESIRE TO SPEAK WITH THEE IN PRIVATE!" Luna nudged her head towards Twilight.

Celestia looked down at her former student to see her frantically trying to recover the scattered papers. "No, no, no..." she mumbled under her breath as purple magic gripped hold of two pages and brought them to her nose. "These were supposed to go _after_ paragraph 9 section 37 subsection 215, not before." Celestia could tell from her students frazzled mane that they were passed the point of salvaging the documents.

"Twilight," she calmly said to attract her attention. "Can you give us a moment? You can return to collect what remains of these later."

"But... I... they..." she sighed. "Yes, of course." Twilight mumbled something to herself, ruffling through the crumpled papers in her magic. She shuffled towards the door. "I'll just go and try to makes some sense out of what I still have." The large doors of the throne room swung shut behind her.

Princess Celestia gazed at the several open windows. No doubt several of the documents had already flown out and into the busy streets of Canterlot, never to be recovered.

"I hope you're happy with yourself." she turned to her sister. "There goes a plan that would have forever eradicated tribalism from Equestria while simultaneously finding homes for every orphan from here to Manehattan."

"Oh." Luna bit her lip with the most mildest of apologetic glances. "Any hope to get it back?"

"It'll take Twilight at least another year to redraft everything," Celestia responded. "And even then, there's no guarantee."

* * *

><p>On the outskirts of Ponyville, three fillies were dragging along a wagon full of pudding in an attempt to get their Cutie Marks. Suddenly, one of them froze, poked her head up, and glanced off into the distance at Canterlot.<p>

"What's the matter, Scootaloo?" Apple Bloom asked.

"I... I don't know," Scootaloo admitted. "I just suddenly got the feeling that I've been screwed over."

* * *

><p>"Anyway," Celestia moved on. "What did you wish to discuss?"<p>

"Ah yes." Luna refocused herself. "I want a throne."

Celestia sank into the cushioned seat below her in shock. Her eyes widened in panic and darted off to the side. "Uh... W-what was that?"

"I. Want. A. Throne." Luna pronounced each word fluently, guaranteeing Celestia heard that time. "And preferably my own throne room, too, but I'm will to negotiate when it comes to that."

"You want a throne," Celestia reiterated, a shakiness in her voice.

"Yes."

"Right now?"

"Naturally."

Her teeth clenched. She was thinking up a storm, trying to find something, anything, that would buy time. "Um... why do you want a throne?"

Luna sighed. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Noooo," Celestia said as slowly as possible.

Her sister's eyelids drooped in annoyance. "I'm a princess." Luna pointed to her crown to drive the point home.

"Really? You are? I had no idea! Let's talk about that instead."

"Tia."

"Sorry."

Luna continued with her explanation. "There are three other princesses Equestria, and each of them have their own thrones." She pointed to Celestia. "You have one made out of solid gold. Cadence has one made of solid diamonds. Twilight got the Tree of Harmony to fly a chest into the ground and sprout an entire castle with not one, but _seven_ thrones."

"In all fairness," Celestia interrupted. "Six of those thrones are for her friends."

Luna stomped her hoof on the floor. "Exactly! And they're not even princesses." Luna puffed out her chest. "So where is my throne?"

"Lulu, you don't need a throne," Celestia weakly attempted.

"Don't need one?" Luna roared. "Do you have any idea how degrading it is to have to stand next to you while you sit whenever we meet with foreign dignitaries?"

"Well..."

"Do you know how tired my hooves get after standing for eight hours everyday during court?

"Um... maybe..."

"Do you even want to know how many blisters I have?" Luna prepared to remove her hoof brace, likely more than willing to assault Celestia's eyes with callouses untold.

"No! Don't!" she pleaded. Begrudgingly, Luna left her hoof alone. Celestia sighed. "Luna, I am sorry that you feel this way... but you can't get a throne."

"Why not?" Luna demanded.

"Because I said so," Celestia said. This excuse normally worked with Twilight, so she was hoping for similar results here. She wasn't going to get them.

"That's not good enough, Tia," Luna cried. "What's going on with you? Why are you so adamant that I don't get a throne? Do you hate my happiness?"

"Lulu..."

Luna didn't hear her, or if she did, she didn't care. "Oh look at that everypony, Princess Luna is smiling. Better call Princess Celestia so she can come and _crush all of her sister's hopes and dreams_."

"That's a little harsh, don't you think?"

"I just want to know what's going on." Luna pouted.

_I'm going to have to tell her,_ Celestia realized. "Okay fine." she ruefully bowed her head. "The truth is... we're broke."

"...Excuse me?" Luna stepped forward, and cocked her head to the side.

"We don't have any money to get you a throne, Luna. We. Are. Broke."

"What? But... how? When?" Luna looked at the ground in shock. "This can't be."

Celestia stood up from her throne and walked over to Luna. "It's the truth, Lulu. If you go down the the Bank of Equestria and check our account, you will find the balance to be zero bits."

"I don't understand," Luna said. "Why didn't you tell me?

"I didn't know how to," Celestia admitted. "When you returned from exile, I was so embarrased that I just decided to sit on the topic for a while... and you never found out, especially when I spray painted all that styrofoam gold and stuck it in the treasure vaults, so I just let the topic drop."

"This can't be," Luna firmly denied. "What about the tax revenue?"

"All taxes collected are immediately swallowed by the infrastructure and internal improvement bills. Not to mention the healthcare plans and the military budget."

"But what about trade?" Luna cried, still in denial. "Surely we get money from that!"

"All money we get from exports goes straight to paying for our imports." Celestia bit her lip. "And what little is leftover goes to the daily palace maintenance."

"What about the bank?" Luna shouted in desperation. "We could always take out a loan."

Celestia grimaced, and took a slow step away from her sister. "That is not an option either."

"Why not?"

She bit her lip. "Well..."

"Tia," Luna said, her tone angering. "What did you do?"

"A couple of centuries ago I took out a four billion bit loan from the bank and wasn't able to repay it. Instead I... _convinced_ them to forgive my debt, but in exchange I had to promise that the royal family would never borrow money from them again." Celestia walked over to the window, not wanting to meet her sister's eyes.

"What did you spend the money on?" She heard Luna ask.

"Heh... I'm sure you'll get a kick out of this, Lulu."

"What was it?" There was a tone of anger laced in her sister's voice.

"..."

"Tia, what did you spend the four billion bits on? Was there a war? A famine?"

"Cake."

Luna's surprised blink was almost audible. "Cake?"

"Cake." Celestia's face was red. "I spent four billion bits on cake. A few donuts too... but mostly cake."

"So... the reason I can't have my throne, is because a few hundred years ago you got the craving for a ton of cake?"

"It was actually nine hundred tons of cake," she said. "But yes." She turned around and could see the anger bubbling onto her sister's face. "Lulu..."

"I can't believe you!" Luna furiously shouted. "Are you saying I will never be able to have my own throne?"

"Well you could always get a job and pay for it yourself." Celestia felt like an idiot before the words even left her mouth.

Luna's face contorted into a mixture of hatred and betrayal. "You are the worst sister ever!"

The words stung. A lot. So did the slap across her face that Luna delivered immediately after saying the words.

"Lulu, calm down."

"No! I will not calm down. I am furious, Tia! I can't just stand at your side for eternity, I just can't."

Celestia had to think quickly. The last time Luna got this angry she turned into a being of unspeakable evil and tried to blot out the sun. Before she could even form half of a plan, Celestia nervously spoke. "Um... just kidding, Lulu."

Luna gave her sister a sideways glance. "What?"

"Yep, haha, I got you..." Celestia took a step toward her sister. "O-of course we're not broke. I was just... uh... stalling for the surprise!"

"Surprise?" Luna asked quizzically. "What are you talking about, Tia?"

"I've... uh... had a throne under construction for a while now, just for you. I-In fact, I've had an entire throne room under construction just for you."

"Really?" Celestia forced a nod through her fake smile. "That's... that's amazing, Tia!" Luna flung her hooves around her sister's neck. "You really had me going there for a moment. The two of us broke, what a riot!"

"Hehe... yup."

"So can I see it?" Luna asked, releasing her sister. Her face was a giddy mixture of anticipation and excitement.

"See what?"

"My throne room of course! I want to see it, and sit on my new throne!"

"Uh... sure... come with me."

Celestia led Luna out of her throne room and down the halls of the palace. _What am I thinking? I don't have a throne room to show her. All I'm going to be able to do is make her twice as mad as she just was._ Celestia glanced back at her sister, who was humming an upbeat tune and skipping along. _Great, just great. Well, maybe everything will be okay. I'll just take her around the castle a few times, say I'm lost, and we'll call it a day. Oh, who am I kidding? That won't work. I need a new plan._

They continued walking, eventually reaching a wing that Celestia was fairly certain her sister had never visited before. She began desperately looking around for something that might fool Luna into making her think she had her own throne. She came up with nothing, and just decided she would open the very next door as a last act of desperation. Luna would be mad, but at least they would have a few more seconds of being on good terms.

"I still can't believe you pranked me like that." Luna chuckled to herself. "I'd thought you stopped doing that a long time ago."

"Oh you know me," Celestia said through a forced smile. She stopped at a random door, hoping to Faust for a miracle to happen and for a throne to be on the otherside, despite how impossible she knew it was. "I'm full of pranks."

"Before we go in, I just wanted to say that I'm sorry," Luna said. "You're not the worst sister ever. You're the best by far."

Celestia forced herself to keep smiling while internally she winced. "Thanks, Lulu." She slowly turned the knob of the door, but her sister got impatient and rushed in with a joyous grin on her face. It vanished almost immediately.

The room was bare, save for one small thing in the very center of it. It was most certainly not the throne that Luna expected to see.

"Tia, this is a toilet," Luna said, staring at porcelain seat in front of her.

"No it isn't," Celestia said in desperation. Luna walked over, and flipped the little switch on the side. It made a flushing noise as water was pumped down a drain. Luna watched as more water filled up the bowl of the toliet.

"Okay, Tia," Luna giggled. "Very funny. You got me a second time. Now really, where is my throne?"

Celestia opened her mouth to respond, and then teleported away in a blinding flash of light.


End file.
